The Play That Goes Wrong

The Play That Goes Wrong is silly, ridiculous fun. A cross between Noises Off and Fawlty Towers, it trades on familiar theatrical tropes where an amateur theatre company put on a play and everything that could go wrong does – missed lines, forgotten props, doors that won’t open, dead bodies who move, pratfalls, and the set falling down in spectacular fashion, all in the name of a laugh.

We’ve seen it all before, but the difference of this production is the physical comedy routines reminiscent of silent film slapstick. If you love Funniest Home Videos or Demolition Derby then this is the show for you. It’s not sophisticated but it’s funny. It requires great skill to appear to act badly and this group of actors are expert farceurs and more than up to the challenge in this play-within-a-play faux Agatha Christie whodunit The Murder At Haversham Manor.

There’s an exasperated and inept village Inspector (Nick Simpson-Deeks), a concussed femme-fatale (Brooke Satchwell), a word-challenged butler (George Kemp), and a sound-effects man who plays with his Rubic’s cube and listens to Duran Duran (Adam Dunn). Add in a shy ASM (Tammy Wheeler), a body-that-won’t-stay-still (Darcy Brown), a tweedy self-important thespian (Luke Joslin), and original London cast member James Marlowe doing double-duty as a rooky actor and a gardener, and you have the perfect set of stock characters to parody.

Director Sean Taylor keeps the choreographed-chaos bubbling, helped by Nigel Hook’s ingenious set that falls apart as the drop of a missed cue.

The show started life as a one-hour grad improv at the upstairs Old Red Lion pub theatre in London. When you begin to feel this two-act version has overextended its welcome it suddenly hits you with a sucker-punch (like another part of the set falling down) and this mad merry-go-round gets another lease of life. People on stage being knocked out cold by an opening door have never been funnier.

Peter Pinne  

Photographer: Jeff Busby